


With Hearts Of Gold (Who Needs Any Treasure?)

by CasTheButler



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Aromantic, Asexual Character, Gen, Multi, Queerplatonic Relationships, Theatre
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:36:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21699364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CasTheButler/pseuds/CasTheButler
Summary: A story about questioning sexuality and romance and general teenage angst really, please someone give Connor a hug or something.
Relationships: Denice "Foxtrot" Ford & Tony "Tango" Tangredi & Connor "Whiskey" Whisk, Denice "Foxtrot" Ford/Tony "Tango" Tangredi, other implied relationships
Comments: 3
Kudos: 30
Collections: Polya Epifest 2019





	With Hearts Of Gold (Who Needs Any Treasure?)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [polyjosten](https://archiveofourown.org/users/polyjosten/gifts).

> So I wrote this story for this year's Check Please Polya Epifest. I really enjoyed writing it but I'm a little nervous because I wish I could have written a lot more. Time and life just happened to get away from me - which seems to be the general mood of 2019 one 
> 
> A side note: I have not marked this as underage, because I feel it is unnecessary. It is implied however that at least some of the characters have budding sexual relationships with each other, nothing at all is implicitly shown remotely and the most description you get is a character making a statement to another in a brief discussion about relationships. I hope this still remains acceptable in terms of the rating and content.

"I thought you were gay?" Whiskey's brother says. Because Whiskey's brother is an asshole. 

Whiskey's not his real name obviously. No, that was courtesy of some drunken conversation where all of his friends had decided to try reciting the NATO alphabet. Holiday and Romeo had delightedly renamed them all and now well, now no one had called him Connor for two damn years - 

"I'm not sure that's any of your business," he tells his brother coldly and his brother has the nerve to laugh and slap him on the back. "I'm not sure I'm anything," Whiskey admits in a moment of honesty. 

"How can you not be anything?" his brother asks. "You're either gay or straight." 

Whiskey pinches the bridge of his nose at that and tries to tell himself that Paul is not a bad guy and just needs to learn. He shouldn't have to teach a guy well into his early twenties words like bisexual or pansexual. Or how sometimes romantic feelings and sexual feelings aren’t the same or how gender is fluid. 

“I’m not anything, I’m just a fucking person,” Whiskey says. “Now get out of my room,” he says with such finality that Paul actually leaves. Whiskey cries for three hours that night.

Because  _ Boys Don’t Cry  _ is a bullshit sentiment. 

  
  


“Are you feeling okay?” Foxtrot asks him the following day. She’s a blessing it’s the whole reason he kissed her. Just to see what it felt like. The answer is nice.

_ The same way Tango felt nice a year ago. _

But he doesn’t feel sparks or butterflies or the need to tear her clothes off and touch at her breasts. Honestly, the idea scares him. Not because of her womanhood, he really isn’t gay. He’s nothing.

There’s a word for it:  _ asexual. _

Asexual; he’s known it for years but he’s still terrified to reach out and grab hold of it. Asexual and Aromantic. 

“I don’t know,” he finally says after too many beats of silence. Foxtrot is his best friend but he’s not sure how to tell her anything he’s feeling. “You seen Tango today?”

“Not yet,” comes her reply. “I think Bean was borrowing him for something this morning.” Whiskey nods, that makes sense Bean (or Larissa if you happened to listen to her parents) had basically forcibly adopted Tango at some point. It sounds bad when he puts it like that but she’s basically just a very cool loud bossy sister.

“Guess I’d better find Delt then?” Whiskey questions, peering around the stage area where they’re standing. Delt builds all of their props from scratch, Whiskey really wishes he could be that talented. As if on queue the guy sticks his head out from backstage. He’s covered completely in sawdust. 

“Yo. Whisk!” he says, gesturing at him with a hammer. “Need you to come and hold something steady for me,” Delt says before disappearing again. Whiskey blinks a few times. 

  
“I’m not even meant to be working on this production how do I keep getting roped into this?” he asks. Foxtrot claps him on the back. 

“Because you love us,” she teases. Whiskey’s throat feels dry. 

  
  


He doesn’t see the rest of the group until lunchtime, somehow Delt had managed to get them out of classes for half the day - despite being a six-foot-two ball of rage. Or maybe it was because of it. It’s funny because Delt is actually one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet if you aren’t riling him up. 

_ Kind of like November is doing now.  _

Delt and November are basically complete opposites, which is kind of weird considering they live next door to each other, and they’ve been in the same schools and the same classes since they were like three or some shit. Their latest argument has stemmed from November stealing a mouthful of Delt’s potato salad.

Tango leans over to Whiskey so his mouth his directly next to his ear. “I wish they’d just screw each others brains out already.”

Whiskey spits out his juice, which luckily winds up all over the table instead of actually on someone. His face flushes bright red and he feels everyone’s eyes on him. The whole table has stopped talking. He thinks maybe he might be panicking too much but he can’t tell. What a stupid reaction to have. He feels the weight of strong hands on his shoulder.

“I got you, buddy,” Romeo’s voice says. Whiskey relaxes and the droning of voices around him continues. “Let’s go somewhere quiet okay? The cafeteria is very busy.” Romeo helps him up gently. They find a secluded spot out in one of the stairwells.

“I…” Whiskey begins. He and Romeo are friends, they’re even arguably good friends but he still feels like there’s some sort of unspoken distance between them. Maybe it’s because Romeo is a senior.

“Something Tango said made you upset, did you want one of us to talk to him for you?” Romeo asks. Whiskey shakes his head, he’d just been surprised, not upset. It’s nice, though, to know someone actually cares. He takes in a deep breath, mulling over all of these thoughts he’s been having about himself these past months, maybe even longer. He supposes talking to a friend about it won’t hurt.

“I think I might be, uh, asexual?” he says posing it like a question. He doesn’t look at Romeo when he says it. 

“That’s the first time you’ve said that out loud isn’t it?”

“I think so yeah,” Whiskey says, picking at an invisible piece of lint on his jeans. He wants the staircase to open up and swallow him whole. 

“You don’t have anything to be ashamed of,” Romeo tells him. Whiskey gives the older boy a sharp look.

“I’m not ashamed,” he snaps, even if he maybe is a little ashamed. Scared certainly. “I think I might like Tango as more than a friend, Foxtrot too.” He doesn’t know why he’s saying this. “But the idea of romance and sex and anything like that, I just don’t feel anything when I think about it.”

“Is that because you’ve just never experienced it before?” Romeo asks and Whiskey glares at him, it’s more tiredness than anger that makes him do it. He understands that people have certain points of view. He does have a tumblr account after all.

“I think that’s the whole point man,” he gripes. Romeo holds up his hands defensively before pulling Whiskey into an overwhelming bro hug. Whiskey startles a little but he’s laughing as he struggles against Romeo’s grasp.”Oh my god! Please, oh god you are squishing me you heathen,” he smacks at Romeo’s arms extremely hard but the action is still playful.

“Ow Dude!” Romeo exclaims. “I promise I didn’t mean it like that, it’s…” the older boy trails off for a second. “You want to know a secret?” 

Whiskey feels his heartbeat rise in his chest. Thump, thump, thump. Just like the Edgar Allen Poe book they’d read in English class. “Yeah.”

“I think I may be asexual too, even though me and Holiday totally had sex,” there’s a little intake of breath and he fiddles with his sleeves. “Well Adam, I suppose I should call him Adam now, and he’s always been my friend and it was nice and I like him but I don’t —there were no stomach butterflies and I didn’t feel desperate or anything. It was just. Nice.”

“Yeah,” Whiskey agrees, he hadn’t known about the two of them but it isn’t a surprise. They’re attached at the hip.

“I just... maybe I’m wrong but all the media seems to suggest there should be something more than nice, but I just don’t feel invested.”

It’s funny just how much Whiskey understands exactly where Romeo is coming from. He likes Tango and he likes Foxtrot, he wants to hang out with them and make sure they’re happy. He wants to stay up playing ridiculous video games with Tango until four AM and go to art galleries with Foxtrot just to listen to her rant. When he thinks about kissing and holding hands and saying I love you, and worst of all being sexually intimate. He just freezes up completely. He wonders if it’s because he’s worried about the fact the two of them are already dating each other but he knows they have no issue with polyamory. They’d gotten drunk on stolen cheap beer together and had a whole conversation about it. Maybe he’s just too young to know anything about himself. It’s what people seem to keep implying. Unless you’re straight you don’t know about yourself until you’re about 35.

The bell rings overhead. 

“Thank you for talking to me,” he tells Romeo.

  
  


Tango invites himself over two days later because that’s the sort of thing that Tango does. They’re sitting together on Whiskey’s bed. Whiskey is trying to read through his Math assignment and Tango is playing something on his phone. Whiskey is pretty sure it’s Candy Crush or something similar. Whiskey never had any patience for those kinds of games.

“Wanna make out?” Tango asks.    
  
Whiskey doesn’t look up from his textbook, “Not really?” Tango makes a curious humming noise before going back to his phone.

“Now? Or in general? Not that either answer is bad, obviously, I’m just curious, is it ‘cause you don’t like me and you’re just feeling obligated to be my friend because I’m Foxtrot’s boyfriend or is it because —,”

Whiskey holds up a hand to stop Tango from going off on twenty different tangents in the space of five minutes. “I like you plenty, in fact, I actually like you a lot and it’s very confusing. I’m just not sure I like kissing and I’m really just trying to do homework.”

Tango lets out that defeated hum of his and flops onto Whiskey’s leg. It’s a little uncomfortable but he doesn’t shove him off. “Will you help me with my math homework?” Tango asks. 

“If you get it out of your bag, sure.” Whiskey agrees.

  
  


A group of them go out for milkshakes at a 50’s style dinner, Bean and Bravo are having an argument about which flavour is better chocolate or strawberry. Whiskey is a firm believer in vanilla, personally, but he doesn’t speak up because he knows he’ll be labelled as boring. He gets a chocolate chip cookie, too, so he can dip it in. Tango and Foxtrot are sharing some monstrous concoction of at least 4 different flavours. Holiday and Romeo as always have opted instead to get a sundae that’s somehow bigger than they are which is a feat. Whiskey looks out over all of them and he wonders how they all became friends really, is it just the virtue of being at the same high school? 

Some of them make sense, they belong to the same clubs, the same sports teams, grew up on the same street. Others, he’s not sure. Maybe it’s just the proximity of it all. Shitty and Jack come and join them some time, they’ve travelled down from college just to hang out which is nice. Nice to know graduation doesn’t take people too far away. Shitty is studying law now which somehow suits them, well pre-law actually if one wants to get technical about it. Not in a big shot kind of way, but Whiskey can see them as a community lawyer helping people beat the big corporations. It’s funny how Jack and Shitty are the only ones that didn’t get nicknamed like the others. He supposes there’s something to that. 

“How are you doing?” Shitty asks, slapping Whiskey on the back. He hadn’t realised how much he’d zoned out. He splutters a little into his milkshake from the force of it and Tango hands him a napkin wordlessly. “Sorry,” Shitty says a little sheepishly. 

“No you’re fine, just a million miles away is all,” Whiskey replies, Shitty grabs a chair and pulls it into the barely-there gap between him and Tango. “I’m doing okay,” he says and it’s true he feels happy surrounded by all of his friends like this. 

“I’m happy for you little bro.”

  
  


Delt calls him at 6 am in the morning to come to school early to help with the set design. He grumbles loudly but gets dressed anyway. He’s there by 6.30 which is some kind of miracle because Whiskey is not remotely a morning person. The fact they start classes at 8 am has got him fucked up. The day shouldn’t start until at least 10 am, really if he had his way it’d start a 10 pm but he digresses. Delt is already in there because someone of the maintenance staff thought giving a student access to school any time he damn well pleases is a good plan. 

“How long have you been here?” Whiskey asks. Delt looks up from where he’s hammering.

“4 am. I couldn’t sleep,” Delt replies. Now Whiskey’s looking at him, his eyes are completely bloodshot. 

“Jesus, dude, again?” he says sympathetically, he’s not sure he remembers the last time Delt has actually slept through the night. He’s forever leaving them all random messages at 2 in the morning. 

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me anymore,” Delt says. Whiskey empathises, being a teenager is hard plus he’s pretty sure Delt is in love with November but hasn’t realised it. Probably because Delt likes girls and while he’s super supportive of everyone’s sexuality in his own incredibly grouchy way, hasn’t seemed to corden onto the fact he himself might like boys, too.

“Maybe you just need a break from this production?” Whiskey asks carefully. Performance season is always exhausting. Half of them aren’t even in the musical, Foxtrot and Bean are just very adept at getting all of their friends roped into it every single time. The principal just kind of immediately expects it at this point. 

“I can’t take a break, I’ll get into my own head too much and then what am I supposed to do?” Delt questions. He sighs apologetically. “Can you start painting the castle set for me?”

Whiskey does as he’s told, and it’s a calming exercise. Both Foxtrot and Tango send him texts when they wake up at more reasonable hours and both times he gets a funny feeling in his stomach. It isn’t the butterflies he’s heard people describe, maybe he’s getting sick. 

  
  


Foxtrot invites him over to look at the collaborative piece her and November have done together for a competition. He’s written poetry and she’s done the matching artwork. It’s beautiful but he doesn’t really understand it. 

“I don’t really understand it,” he tells her. Foxtrot laughs warmly in a way that makes her whole body look like it’s glowing. 

“It’s about unrequited love,” she says. Ah, Whiskey thinks,  _ unrequited love , _ what a shambles. 

“Yours or November’s?” he asks curiously. Foxtrot seems surprised by his question because she tugs on the collar of her green cardigan. 

“Why can’t it be both? But no, it was just about the basic general principle of it all,” she explains and he nods along.

“I’m not sure love can be basic or general,” he points out. 

“Maybe, but I think some of the literature overcomplicates it a bit don’t you, while somehow at the same time putting feelings into little defined boxes. I think that’s what Derek is trying to portray here is these words,” she points to a section of the poem, her fingertips tracing across the cursive writing, “Like here,  _ the pavement is cracked and dry from the heat of a thousand people rushing to get home to their lovers, but under my feet it is whole as I stand waiting, _ ”

Waiting for what exactly Whiskey wonders, “It’s very good,” he says.

  
  


They all have pie at lunch break because Bravo has home ec this term. It’s cherry and rhubarb which means it’s quite sour but oh so delicious and a crowd favourite. They all descend on it like rabid beasts. 

“Oh my lord,” Bravo says clutching his chest like he’s trying out for Scarlett O’Hara. He’s grinning, though, because despite being one of the sweetest people to ever exist, Bravo is a narcissist when it comes to his own cooking. In his defense the guy has won every school fair cooking contest since he was 9.

Tango hands Whiskey a slice, “I saved you a piece, you looked unwilling to brave the crowd.”

“Yes, well, Romeo and Holiday are not to be trifled with when it comes to baked sweets,” Whiskey replies.

“Romeo and Holiday are not the trifled with when it comes to any food, or are we just going to forget the whole sushi debacle of last year?” Foxtrot asks, sliding into a spare spot on Whiskey’s other side. A common occurrence but Whiskey’s brain decides there must be some sort of symbolic meaning or analogy the universe is trying to tell him. He frowns. 

“I’m not sure I want to date,” he blurts out, and the whole world doesn’t just stop. 

“You sound like you have a but in that outburst,” Tango says calmly, continuing to eat his own slice of pie. Whiskey wishes there was some more privacy, he feels overwhelmed. His chest feels tight but not exactly like having a panic attack. It's a complicated feeling and he’s very sick of having those. 

“But nothing, I just like spending time with both of you, I mean I like spending time with everyone, but you guys feel, more somehow, but I can’t give you anything sexual or romantic right now, but it’s not —,” Whiskey is rambling and Foxtrot puts her hand on his knee. 

“Let’s find somewhere quiet, we can ditch out on next period. We have different classes so it won’t be that noticeable if we all go,” Foxtrot says. Whiskey nods in agreement, grateful to her for taking charge, Tango obviously feels the same because he stands up too. 

  
  


Getting out of school isn’t hard, they have an open campus after all and students are free to go down the street during their lunch breaks — though of course they’re expected to come back which the three of them have no intention of going. They wind up at the nearby park watching the ducks on the lake. 

"I think it's going to rain," Whiskey says looking at the sky. Foxtrot follows his gaze. 

"I suppose it might yeah, we can hide at my place if it does, my parents won't be home until past 8," she says. 

"I really like you," Tango blurts out and they both turn to look at him in surprise. "Sorry Connor but I do."

"Wow first names this is serious," Whiskey teases, it's mostly a defence mechanism because he doesn't know what to do with that information really. It's not new by any means of course just now it feels like it needs to be quantifiable. "I like you, too," he says because that's the type of thing you say to a friend. Your best friend.

"We all like each other, I'm sure," Foxtrot says in that managerial voice of hers. Whiskey sighs because she's right. 

"I don't know if I want to date anyone, but also don't want to like not date you specifically. It's like... is it possible to be exclusively platonic, I guess? Not like I can't have other friends because me and Delt are going to go out on his dad's boat this weekend so he can teach me to fish —," 

"I want you to have friends other than us," Tango says and he looks so earnest Whiskey kind of wants to gently shake him. He's so precious somehow. 

"Well I'm glad about that," Whiskey replies sarcastically. He reaches out and takes Tango's hand so he can squeeze it reassuringly. "I know you're just trying to look after me. Like we're teenagers and all so we’re still young, but it isn't like we're five. This is the time when we're figuring all of this bullshit like love and sexuality out."

"So do you want to figure it out with us?" Foxtrot asks. That’s the real question Whiskey supposes, everything else just falls into place around that one pertinent fact. 

“I guess we could try going on a date or something?” he says carefully, “Nothing fancy, just like, normal stuff, like the movies or we could play that weird as shit game Tango has been going on about.”

“Death Stranding,” Tango pitches in. Whiskey smiles at him, somehow all of this just feels so easy, like it’s falling into place. It isn’t, there’s still a lot of stuff to figure out but they’re friends at least. They have somewhere to begin. He laces his fingers into Foxtrot’s 

“Tell me more about these bridge babies,” he tells Tango. 

**Author's Note:**

> so that's the end of that chapter (and the story, this isn't a multichapter story sorry!)
> 
> I hope it was enjoyable and you don't feel I have butchered any of the characters. I also really had fun giving everyone different names, I find that it is pretty easy to follow who is who but if it is not please let me know so I can make notes in the description.


End file.
